STUDENT Rachel Preedy is looking forward to a date with The Duke of Edinburgh on Tuesday followed by a garden party at Buckingham Palace.

And during her royal trip she will be presented with her Duke of Edinburgh's Gold Award which she has been working towards for the last 20 months.

Sports mad Rachel, of Park Avenue, Burnley, has completed all five sections of the award, which covers community service, expeditions, skills, physical recreation and a residential project.

And she is further developing her leadership skills during the school holidays, helping with Splash in Burnley, which involves taking youngsters to water activities such as windsurfing.

A student at Salford University, 18-year-old Rachel also displayed her musical and sporting talents during the award.

She has played the viola for seven years and was a member of the Lancashire Student Training Orchestra and still plays for the East Lancashire Youth Orchestra.

The myth that football is a man's sport vanished when she was awarded her football referees' award and refereed a couple of matches at St Theodore's Sixth Form College, of which she is a former student.

Rachel has also been a member of Burnley Ladies Cricket Club for five years and played at county level, as well as organising a sixth form netball team.

She said: "I am looking forward to going to London. It has been hard work but the best bit of the award was walking up Pillar Fell and bivouacking near Grange over Sands in the pouring rain.

"The worst part was having to write up the reports afterwards.

"You have got to think about what you have done and whether it's fulfilled the different parts of the award.

"Two of my sisters have got the award but they didn't get to go to the garden party because it's new for 1999."

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